In the manufacture of gunpowder



NITED STATES PATENT FFICE.

" Rice-Ann 1. L. WITTY, on LOWELL, MASSACHUSETTS.

Specification forming part -of Letters Patent No. 669, dated April 2, 1838.

To all whomtt may concern:

Be it known that I, RICHD.I. L. WITTY,CiVil engineer, of the city of Lowell, State of- Massachusetts, have discovered a new andpow- 'capable of yielding alarge quantity of carbureted hydrogen or inflammable gasuamely,

bituminous coal. The coal is to he highly comminuted with certain proportions of sulphur and nitrate of potash. These three substances are taken in a powdered state and then mixed together; but since these ingredients vary in quantity or otherwise, they will require their definite proportions to be adapted to each other.

Here follows a formula which I have used and,

found to answerwelL-viz:bituminous coal, twenty-six pounds or parts; nitrate of potash, one hundred and fifty-six pounds or parts;

parts; and in order to make the gunpowder the above ingredients-are to he intimately mixed together, as must he the case in preparing gunpowder from any,rnate'rials, and then the combination may undergo the same process as is at present practiced with common gunpowder-viz., in the pressing, graining, glazing, and drying.-

What *1 claim as my discovery is- Making use of bituminous coal in the place of charcoal to form gunpowder, with the other two ingredients at present usedviz., sulphur and niter; and for the use of these two lastnamed ingredients I do not claim any exclu- .si\'e right. r

' 310111). I. L. WITTY.

Witnesses:

Na W- RYAN,

W. DUEsBUaY.

sulphur, thirty-three and one-halfpounds or 

